By The Red Flower ??

It had been days since his companion had fought the creature and he could tell that he did not have much time left with his unlikely friend.

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Eventually, as they kept drifting afloat, his companion shut down, and with that, there was no way to get rations and water.

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He was desperate. How long would he survive like this?

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The dehydration, coupled with the hot sun, was not helping.

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They say necessity is the mother of invention and the desire to shield himself from the sun prompted him to use his coat, pinned on one end of the boat and on his companion, as shade. He knew not to drink the salty sea water.

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All the same, the dehydration was getting to him and time seemed to be moving slowly. Eventually evening came and he randomly decided to try to chip off bits of the boat and see if he could light a fire as he had learnt as a child.

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He needed to feel something, anything besides the dehydration and hunger that were becoming harder and harder to ignore. The little sparks as the fire ignited were a glimmer of hope.

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As he drifted along, so did his mind, taking him back to campfires in his hometown.

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He remembered Kubachu, the mad man who would always be at the fire warming himself. He didn’t think Kubachu was mad but most of the people seemed to think so, going by the stories he would tell.

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At the campfire, Kubachu’s stories reigned supreme. That was his realm. Here, other people kept quiet and let him speak. And speak he would, while sipping what appeared to be booze, telling anyone who cared to listen, the dangers that lay ahead.

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He seemed to value time, and would tell other people gathered around the fire how there would come a time when they would need to stand up for themselves. That if they did not, their descendants would be left wondering why their ancestors took them on this path.

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The agent remembered how there were rumours that in a moment of adventure and/or stupidity, Kubachu may have wandered into an alien ship. In there he got to see a future that was so bleak that when he came back, he was never the same. His mind seemingly never recovered from the experience.

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According to him, what other people mistook for madness was just Kubachu’s way of trying to express something difficult. Because when you see the light and try to explain it to those who are in the dark, they will say you are mad. Because that world does not exist to them or even in their wildest imaginations.

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As he thought about this, he also remembered the tales about ‘the soulless ones’.

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Thinking about it now, and the many interpretations of the stories they were told by Kubachu, he realised that that might just be what is happening.

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His companion, for instance, was one of the first batches of intelligence that were created to help humans survive. But it was said that a time would come when they would be able to execute difficult tasks all on their own.

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Suddenly, he imagined five thousand of them executing an order accurately without any emotional interference.

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“Stop feeding the beast!!” Kubachu exclaimed in one of his tales.

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Clearly, you did not have to look so far to see the future. The future might just be here already.

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As he continued in his state of deep thought, and frankly what could have been delirium, the fire appeared to keep slowly growing but he could not muster enough willpower to put it out.

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‘Allure of the red flower’ is how they referred to it as they hang around by the bonfire in wee hours of the night.

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?Would this be how it all ends?

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At that moment, he noticed something approaching from a distance. Could his mind be playing tricks on him? Was it a boat? No, it was a ship. But what kind?

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Just before he could determine that, all his energy seemed to suddenly drain away and he lost consciousness.